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ASPB and CIMSS Weekly Report
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IN THE PRESS:
ITEMS FOR THE ADMINISTRATOR:
ITEMS FOR THE ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR:
ITEMS FOR THE OFFICE DIRECTOR, STAR:
Bronze Medal Award: Jim Kossin (NCDC/RSAD/PB at the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies) was awarded a 2014 Bronze Medal "For the development and transfer to operations of novel hurricane forecast techniques for eyewall replacement cycles". The techniques utilize operational GOES-derived predictors, as well as environmental information from Global Forecast System (GFS) analyses and forecasts. (Jim Kossin, NCDC/RSAD/PB, 608-265-5356)
Critical Design Review for VIIRS Snow Fraction: A critical design review (CDR) was held on December 9, 2014 for two new JPSS Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) snow fraction algorithms. The products are being implemented as part of the JPSS Risk Reduction program. They will be NOAA operational products in the near future. The review covered requirements, operations concept, the theoretical basis of the algorithms, quality assurance, risks, and actions. It was led by Walter Wolf (STAR) with presentations by Jeff Key and others on the JPSS VIIRS cryosphere cal/val team and the Algorithm Integration Team (AIT). (J. Key, E/RA2, 608-263-2605, jkey@ssec.wisc.edu)
CFIRE Project Advisory Meeting: Brad Pierce attended the National Center for Freight & Infrastructure Research & Education (CFIRE) "Understanding Time-of-Day Variation in Truck Transport and General Traffic Emissions: Guidance for Strategic Urban Air Quality Investments" Project Advisory Meeting on December 10, 2014. The objective of this project is to use traffic volume and speed information (for trucks and mixed-vehicles, combined with speed-dependent emission factors to improve the modeling of vehicle emissions within the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Sparse Matrix Operator Kernel Emissions (SMOKE)Motor Vehicle Emission Simulator (MOVES) and assess air quality impacts of freight and auto emissions within the EPA Community Multi-scale Air Quality (CMAQ) modeling system. Brad Pierce serves as Project Advisor for this effort, which is led by Paul Meier (Wisconsin Energy Institute, UW-Madison). (R.B. Pierce, E/RA2, 608-890-1892, brad.pierce@noaa.gov)
ITEMS FOR THE DIVISION CHIEF, CoRP:
STAR System Detects Renewed Activity at Remote Volcano: The NOAA/NESDIS/STAR VOLcanic Cloud Analysis Toolkit (VOLCAT) automatically detected renewed volcanic activity on Heard Island, which is located in the very remote southern Indian Ocean. The VOLCAT system detected thermal anomalies in Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) data that are likely associated with renewed lava production (the first activity detected on Heard Island in over 1 year). The thermal anomalies produced alert messages. The information contained within the alert messages was subsequently passed along to the Smithsonian/United States Geological Survey (USGS) Global Volcanism Program (GVP). The GVP is responsible for documenting global volcanic activity and the renewed volcanic activity on Heard Island was included in the November 26, 2014 GVP weekly report (http://www.volcano.si.edu/reports_weekly.cfm). The VOLCAT system routinely detects volcanic activity that otherwise goes unnoticed. Such detections are especially important for the roughly 90% of the world’s volcanoes that are not routinely monitored, like those on Heard Island. (M. Pavolonis, E/RA2, 608-263-9597, Mike.Pavolonis@noaa.gov, J. Sieglaff, CIMSS, J. Cintineo, CIMSS)JPSS/GOES-R Seminar on Fog and Low Clouds: Mike Pavolonis (NOAA/NESDIS/STAR) gave a Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS)/Next Generation Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES-R) science seminar on December 1, 2014 entitled “Utilization of GOES-R and JPSS for Quantifying the Horizontal Extent of Hazardous Low Clouds.” The presentation included an overview on how measurements from GOES-R and JPSS can be combined with non-satellite data sets to improve the detection and characterization of small-scale valley fog events. The seminar is available online at http://www.jpss.noaa.gov/science-seminars-archive.html. (M. Pavolonis, E/RA2, 608-263-9597, Mike.Pavolonis@noaa.gov)
Weather Underground Blog Post: A guest blog post by Jim Kossin (NCDC/RSAD/PB) appears on the Weather Underground website. The post is entitled "CycloneCenter.org: Harnessing the Power of Crowd-Sourcing to Improve Hurricane Data" and is available here: http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=2879. (J.Kossin, NCDC/RSAD/PB, 608-265-5356)
Manuscript on satellite monitoring of PM10 in Po Valley, Italy submitted to ACP: A manuscript entitled "High spatial resolution aerosol retrievals used for daily particulate matter monitoring over Po valley, northern Italy" by Arvani, B, R. Bradley Pierce, Alexei I. Lyapustin, Yujie Wang, Grazia Ghermandi, and Sergio Teggi was submitted to Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. The manuscript compares 10km Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Collection 5.1 and new 1 km Multi-Angle Implementation of Atmospheric Correction (MAIAC) Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) retrievals to small (<10 micron) particulate matter (PM10) surface measurements from monitoring stations within the Po Valley in Northern Italy during 2012. When the depth of the planetary boundary layer (PBL) is used to normalize the AOD, we find a significant improvement in the PM – AOD correlation, leading to a correlation of R2 = 0.98 for both retrievals when they are normalized by the PBL depth. The results show that the normalized MAIAC retrieval provides a higher resolution depiction of the AOD within the Po Valley and performs as well in a statistical sense as the normalized standard MODIS retrieval for the same days and locations (R.B. Pierce, E/RA2, 608-890-1892, brad.pierce@noaa.gov)
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